Hearts Unleashed: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by C. D. Gorri

  A few more doors and a few more wires and then it’s the big safe. Sweat trickles down my back as I balance the spells required to disrupt the security system while also unlocking and moving the gigantic steel door to the vault.

  From this distance across town, it’s taking everything I’ve got and pushing me well beyond what I thought were my limits.

  “Vault opening. Step back.” My voice is shaking from exhaustion, but we’re almost there. They’re almost in.

  The huge door swings open and my monitor fills with harsh green light from inside the vault. I squint, watching the men whoop and cheer as they hurry inside and start loading their bags with cash and jewels and priceless art.

  Dmitri strides through the vault to the wall at the back. This is the bonus prize. The thing Malovich wasn’t sure they would find. He lifts the lid of a large wooden trunk, filling the vault with the eerie pastel pink glow that only fae magic has.

  We’ve been planning this job for nine long months. When it’s finished, it’s going to take one of the rival wolf families off the map, making room for Grigory Malovich and his organization to move in and take over as the new head of all the crime families who claw for power and territory in this city.

  I watch on the monitor, waiting, making sure I see all the men. Sweat runs into my eye, making me blink and lose count. I have to start counting again. I touch my screen as I go, careful not to miss one or count the same man twice. I need them all to be completely inside the vault.

  Ticking off the mental list, I name them as I go. Dmitri, Viktor, Stefan, Leo, Volga, and Mikhail. That’s six. That’s all of them.

  Holy shit.

  My pulse explodes in my chest. Sweat runs down my spine and between my breasts and soaks through my shirt under my armpits.

  This is it.

  It’s time.

  My mouth has gone dry. I grab hold of the table to steady my shaking hands and send every ounce of my magic through the network and into the bank.

  The vault door eases closed on silent hinges, coming to rest with a gentle clang that echoes in the empty space like an old grandfather clock. I can no longer see the men. The camera is outside the vault.

  I spin the wheel and send the thick metal bars into their locked position, reconnecting the metal which lets the electric charge course through once again. The door gives off a tiny hum as it locks in place, which is sure to be heard by the men inside.

  “What the fuck?” Stefan sounds confused. The door isn’t supposed to close until they confirm they are clear of the vault. They can’t touch the door once it’s closed because it is electrified and will kill anyone who dares.

  “Open the vault, Witch.” Dmitri’s voice is a growl.

  I slip off my headset and grab my bag, ignoring the sound of their questions that escalate quickly into threats and pleas from the earpiece. I don’t have much time. I have nine minutes, to be exact. Nine minutes to get my marker and grab enough cash and get the hell out of here for good. I have to disappear. There is no going back from this.

  While Dmitri and his team are locked inside, Grigory Malovich and the rest of his crew are not. They are on site, waiting outside the bank. They might as well be on the moon for all the help they can give their team. Without me, they can’t disable the alarms. Without me, they can’t open the vault. Without me, they can’t do anything.

  Well, that’s not entirely true.

  In a moment or two Malovich will hear from his men and understand what I’ve done. He’ll race back here to his headquarters in the old castle on the edge of the city. He will force me to hack back in and free his men. Then he will probably kill me and take his sweet ass time doing it.

  Malovich has owned me ever since he caught me stealing from him. I was sixteen, homeless, and desperate enough to take from the crime boss. It wasn’t my fault his security was shit. I could’ve hacked it in my sleep. But that cocky attitude made me careless, and he caught me fair and square.

  Thanks to some fast talking and his ability to see my value, I managed to keep my head attached to my shoulders, but in exchange I became his indentured servant for life. He owns me, owns everything I do. He ruthlessly put my hacking skills to use for seven years. I’ve been stuck here for seven fucking years doing his bidding. Forced to work my magic, enabling him to lie, cheat, and steal his way to the top of the wolf mafia.

  The failure of this job is going to set him back—a lot—but he will recover.

  When the plan for this job was shared with me and I realized all his men would be together—away from here and away from me—including Malovich himself and his private security detail, I knew it was my only chance to break free.

  But this is a one-shot deal. Because as soon as he realizes what I’ve done, he’ll be coming for me. He’ll race here at top speed. He’ll run red lights and mow down anything in his path. He won’t stop for anything or anyone. And that race across town will take almost exactly nine minutes.

  Nine minutes to get my marker and disappear.

  My part in the endless drama with these wolves who would be kings is almost over. The thought that I’ll never have to smell a roided-out raging wolf ever again means that I could die a happy woman tomorrow.

  I take the stairs two at a time and press my hand to the handprint scanner that calls the elevator. My palm is sweaty, but I have no choice—with everyone waiting at the bank, I will never get this kind of access again.

  The elevator opens and I slip in the keycard I stole from Grigory himself right before he left for the bank. There are no buttons in the elevator, only a card slot. I slip in the card and glance at my watch.

  Eight minutes.

  I can’t tell if it’s the elevator or my stomach that drops as I descend. But when the door opens, I don’t think. I just run. The narrow hall is like a maze, but I have memorized the way. Long hall. Left. Another hall. Left. Halfway down the next hall, then right. Door at the end of the hall.

  I push the door open and step into the darkness, racing across the room to the safe hidden in the stone wall. I spin the dial on the safe, pausing on the combination digits until it unlocks with a solid click.

  Seven minutes.

  “Hello there.”

  My marker sits in the center of the top shelf, on top of all the ill-gotten cash, the boxes of precious stones, on top of all Malovich holds dear, shining in the glow of the tiny light. I laugh at how the heavy bronze coin is given pride of place, revered in a way that I’ve never been. The hunk of metal is the totem that binds my agreement, my indenture, my slavery under the monster called Grigory.

  And now my marker is mine again. Along with a fair amount of cash, which I decide is payment for seven years of services rendered. He wouldn’t have most of what’s in this safe if it were not for me. And this is just a sliver of his riches. I’m merely taking me cut. If a little extra slips into my bag, so be it.

  I’ve earned it.

  I unzip my backpack and drop my marker and the cash and boxes inside, slinging the bag over my shoulders.

  A noise reaches me through the door at the back of the room. An echo of something metal touching metal. It’s small, but there can be no mistaking it, and its coming from the next room.

  I freeze, holding my breath.

  I can’t risk anyone finding me here.

  I remind myself to stick to the plan. Don’t skip a step. Don’t freak. I ease the safe shut and spin the dial then I tiptoe to the door and peer inside the other room, bracing myself for an attack, a weapon, a trap.

  But instead, I find a man cuffed and chained to an iron bar cemented into the floor. He’s covered in grime and blood, and his hair hangs over his face. He’s breathing as he strains against the chains, so I know he’s alive.

  Six minutes.

  I step closer and sense the vibrating pulse of secure energy surrounding this guy. I touch a finger to it, sending a pink ripple through the air. I recognize the zing of fae magic and gasp as I feel my entire body prickle with delicious heat.
I lick the magical residue from my finger and fight to keep myself from swooning. Fae magic is as expensive and rare and powerful as it tastes.

  The tattoo spanning across his wide shoulders tells me that he’s a wolf. It’s a brand from a pack I don’t recognize. I let out a low whistle. “Wow. Someone really wants to keep you here,” I say.

  The guy’s arms tense and he looks up at me, straining against the chains. His eyes meet mine and it’s like we’re transported into the ether.

  We’re floating in an abyss of darkness and stars. His chains are gone and he’s watching me, reaching for me across the vastness of the divide. He closes his eyes as if he’s relieved and the absence of his gaze awakens a longing inside me that screams for him to open his eyes. I just need him to look at me again. I need it. I want more. I need more.

  I need him.

  A strange beeping pulls me back into the world. It takes a moment for me to register the sound coming from my wrist. I blink and look at my watch as if it’s an alien thing, an annoyance, a pest.

  Then reality hits.

  Five minutes.

  Shit.

  I shake off the haze and do a quick recon of the room. There’s a control panel on the wall that connects to an array directing the fae magic that surrounds the guy. He’s also bound in shackles on that bar.

  I can’t leave him here. I don’t know who he is or how he ended up here, but I know the monster who is keeping him here, and nobody deserves to be at the mercy of Grigory Malovich.

  “I sure hope you can walk,” I say.

  With Malovich’s card key, the panel doesn’t even need a hacker. I disable the array and watch as the fae magic is reduced to a slow trickle of pale pink smoke leaking from the open valve. Another switch opens the shackles, and as soon as he’s free he slumps over the bar, unconscious and limp.

  Three minutes.

  “Really? Really?” I whisper-shout into the room. I can’t waste any more time.

  I take one look at the little puffs of magic seeping from the array and a tiny little plan hatches into my consciousness. If it’s there, I may as well use it. Because if there’s any hope of me carrying this huge lug out of here, I am going to need all the power I can get.

  I call on the protection of the patron saint of hackers. “Dear Neo, please don’t let the fae magic cause my head to explode like that one guy from the news last month or make me a fae-vape junkie living in a perma-hallucination for the rest of my life. I just want to get out of here and get him out of here. In the name of all the righteous and holy hackers, I pray. Thank you. Amen. Mazel Tov. God save the Queen.”

  I glance at my watch.

  Two minutes.

  It’s now or never.

  I pull the tube from the ceiling and hold it in front of me, bracing myself for the influx of more energy than any human is meant to carry. I close my eyes and inhale as much of the fae elixir as my lungs will hold.

  Hoping it’s enough.

  Hoping it’s not too much.

  Hoping like hell I haven’t just doomed us both.

  I’m thrown back against the wall, my arms and legs like jelly. My pack slips off my shoulders and I slide down, melting onto the floor like all my bones have turned to water. I know this is what happens. I’ve seen it in others. I just have to breathe.

  I inhale once and it’s like the switch is hit. I am on my feet. I grab my pack and move to the guy who is still slumped over the bar. I lift his arm, hoping to get him to move, but he pushes me away, sending me sprawling. He’s very big and very strong.

  “Oh no you don’t. You are not going to get us both caught. This train only moves forward and like it or not, you’re on it.”

  I grab his arm and pull, heaving him onto my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Thank god for the fae magic that not only gives me the strength to lift him, but also keeps my legs from breaking under his weight. I can’t tell how heavy he is while this fae shit is surging through me, but he’s easily three times my size and I am not a big person.

  One minute.

  I run for the door, and trace backward through the maze of halls to the elevator, hoping that it took Malovich a minute or two or three to get moving once they realized what I’d done. Because I’m cutting it way too close, and I need every second I can get.

  Chapter Two

  MAX

  A wadded ball of greasy yellow tissue paper bounces off my shoulder and lands on the dashboard of the van. The hint of mustard and onions wafts around my face. I hate mustard.

  I glance in the rearview mirror. “Cut it out, Noah. I’m trying to think.”

  My brother grins at me from the back of the van, his mouth full of what might be his tenth cheeseburger since we arrived on our stake-out. He shrugs. “What? It helps me think. How long are we going to sit here?”

  “As long as it takes. Why the fuck is this place so quiet all of a sudden? I don’t want us walking into an ambush if they somehow know we’re coming.”

  “But how could they know?” He takes a bite of the new burger.

  “How the hell should I know? All I know is that we’ve been watching this place every night for five days, and the very night we’re planning to bust in there, it’s like a ghost town? It doesn’t make sense. Something feels off.”

  “You think we should wait another few days? Keep scoping it out?”

  “Wait?” I turn in my seat and glare at Noah. “If it were you in there, would you want us to wait any longer than we had to? How would you feel if you knew your brothers had located you, and figured out how to get you free, but they missed their chance because something didn’t feel right?”

  “I know, but you said yourself that it feels off… It doesn’t do us any good if we get caught, or worse…”

  Fucking hell. Every moment he’s in there, we’re losing time. But Noah’s right, there’s no point in any of this if we don’t make it out. I count off all the things for him as if he weren’t already aware. As if he hadn’t helped me with every part of the plan.

  Maybe I’m just trying to reassure myself more than anything else. “We’ve got the fucking tools. We’ve got the fucking means. We have the fucking key to the fucking gate. And we have the fucking van. After all this time, we finally know where the fuck he is. We’re not fucking leaving without him. Got it?”

  Noah lowers his head and looks away. “Got it, Max. I’m sorry.”

  I sigh and try to ratchet down the pressure threatening to make me implode. I didn’t mean to flare like that. The last thing I need is Noah feeling like he’s got to be careful about making his Alpha angry. I’ve been on the edge of losing it for weeks… hell, months. “Just be quiet and let me think.”

  I grip the steering wheel, willing some insight to hit me. The crinkling of a cheeseburger wrapper fills the van and I have to force myself to let it slide. I know he’s thinking of solutions. I know we will find a way. Noah’s the one who figured out the route inside in the first place. But it only works if nobody knows we’re coming. If he needs to eat so he can think better, I can suffer a van full of mustard air and fast-food paper trash.

  We could just go for it. We could stick to the original plan and just tear through the place, a stampede of claws and teeth. God knows I’ve got enough rage inside me to fuel one hell of a battle. But there are wolves in there too. And we’re just two against who knows how many.

  I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. And the feeling that this is going to be our last chance to get Jason out of there alive.

  I close my eyes and do some yoga breathing careful to keep it on the down-low, so Noah doesn’t—

  “See! I told you!” Noah says.

  Oh hell.

  I can tell he’s smiling even though my eyes are closed.

  “I told you those breathing exercises would help you, Max. You are way too tense.”

  I glare at him through the mirror. “You done?”

  “And you were all I’m not doing any of those stupid girly exercises!’”
He puffs his chest out and pulls a face, trying to do an impersonation of me.

  “Whatever.” Closing my eyes, I blow out my breath and ignore him, taking a deep inhale in through my nose.

  “Namaste,” Noah whispers.

  I loosen my grip on the wheel and drop my hands in my lap, letting my head fall back on the headrest. We have to get Jason out of there. Of all the things I thought we’d have to deal with, I never thought we would run out of time.

  Ninety-nine years.

  That’s how long we were given when the Roarke clan took everything from us. After destroying their ancestral lands, decimating their kingdom, and letting so many of their own people die, they didn’t try to fix anything. They just packed up and went out into the world, searching for new lands to take. Like a swarm of greedy locusts, eating everything in their path.

  But we didn’t know that then.

  It’s not a surprise that they wanted my family’s home. Teerstone is a beautiful place. It’s vast and lush and has been ruled by my family for so many thousands of years that it never dawned on any of us that we were in danger.

  The Roarkes presented themselves as a nomad clan. There were only about thirty of them, a third of those were women and children. They asked to camp on our lands, seeking a friendly place to live until the harsh northern winter broke and they could continue on their way through the mountain realms and beyond to the glacier ranges.

  They befriended us. We let them in. They ingratiated themselves into our lives and our hearts. And then they killed all three of our kings and our queen—who were also our parents.

  They burned at the stake our Delilah, the woman my brothers and I were meant to bond with. The woman who would become our mate and rise with us to rule when the time came.

  Seventy-three years.

  We thought we had so much time. It seemed impossible that we wouldn’t find her. I think the three of us fell in love with the idea of this quest and this seemingly endless amount of time. I won’t say that we squandered it—I don’t believe that’s true. But I can admit now that we were less than hurried, and that is something I regret deeply.